15. Chapter 15
Chapter 15
Four and a half years ago
The law office of Goodman it was pretty much a formality, since everything had been agreed upon weeks ago. Feeling slightly nauseated at the thought that a signature would make her a divorced woman, she almost didn’t hear Michael when he spoke to her.
“There’s been a last-minute addendum, which I’ve documented on the last page,” he said as he sat down.
Ellen flipped to the last page and she and Paige started reading.
When Paige was finished, she looked up. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“The house is yours,” Michael explained. “David relinquished any legal claim to the house.”
“That’s very generous,” Ellen said, clearly pleased.
“No. I can’t let him do this. I won’t let him do this.” Paige felt like she was going to cry. “We agreed to sell it and split the proceeds, since neither one of us could buy the other one out.”
“He changed his mind. He wants you to have it,” Michael said. “He’s relinquishing any legal claim so you don’t have to buy him out, allowing you to keep the house.”
Paige got to her feet. “Where is he? Is he still here?”
“No. He left fifteen minutes ago.”
“I’m not signing this.”
“It’s what he wants, Paige. He was very clear on that.”
“And if I sell it and give him half of the proceeds anyway?”
Michael leaned forward, hands clasped together in front of him. “He said if you do that, he’ll track down that girl named Angela that you hated in college—the one who wouldn’t stop hitting on him—and give her the money.”
If the situation wasn’t so sad, David’s outrageous threat would’ve been funny. “Damn it,” she whispered, blinking back tears.
She was the one who had destroyed them and he was bestowing this generosity on her.
She didn’t deserve it.
And she didn’t know it then, but there would come a time when she wouldn’t want it.
She didn’t know a lot of things that day in the law office of Goodman he didn’t look back, which she was both grateful for and hated.
She stood there, long after David had driven away, before slowly making her way to her own car. Once inside, she stared out the front windshield for several minutes before summoning the energy to start the car and begin the drive to the house that was now hers. Halfway there, she decided to make a quick detour at a liquor store, where she bought two bottles of wine, hoping it would be enough.
At home, she had barely parked in the driveway when a knock at her driver’s side window startled her. It was Marilyn, her next-door neighbor.
With a sigh, Paige got out of the car and was immediately enfolded in a hug by the tiny, older woman.
“How are you?” Marilyn wanted to know, her concern evident.
“Today was a little rough, but I’m okay,” Paige lied, forcing herself to smile at the woman who regularly brought banana bread over, as well as her amazing homemade applesauce.
“Oh, my dear girl, if you need anything, you let me know. I’m always here, unless I’m at bingo, but that’s only on Thursday nights.”
“I will. Thank you.”
Paige went inside the house and before she even had the front door closed and locked behind her, Spook, the black cat she and David had adopted from a local shelter, was at her side, rubbing against her legs. Mindful of the cat, she carefully stepped out of her heels, leaving them next to the entryway table before heading into the kitchen, Spook eagerly following. Paige set the bottles of wine on the counter and a moment later Spook jumped up and sat next to them, awaiting his dinner.
“Hungry?” she asked, rubbing her hand down his back, his silky black fur looking almost blue in the light.
He meowed and looked at her with luminous green eyes, watching as she opened a little can of his ridiculously expensive cat food and spooned it into his food bowl.
While he ate, she grabbed a corkscrew and opened one of the bottles of wine. For a moment, she considered just drinking straight from the bottle and saving herself the hassle of washing a glass later, but decided against it, because she wasn’t a savage. She got a wine glass out and poured herself a full glass, then immediately took a long drink without letting the Merlot breathe first. With one hip pressed against the counter, she drank her wine while Spook ate and when he was done, she picked him up and set him on the floor. Then, with her wine glass in one hand and the opened bottle in the other, she wandered around the small house, looking in each room, as if with new eyes.
All traces of David were gone, with the exception of the furniture they had picked out together, and some pictures of the two of them displayed on the mantle that David had sanded and stained with painstaking care.
With Spook trailing behind her, Paige’s final stop was the master bedroom. Exhausted, she sat down on her side of the bed and set the wine bottle on her nightstand. Then, unable to stop herself, she opened the nightstand drawer and took out a small, framed ultrasound picture and with a gentle finger, traced the blurry image of what had been hers and David’s baby boy.
Despite the common belief that you weren’t supposed to think about it as an actual baby until you passed the first trimester—you weren’t supposed to tell people or pick a name out because that’s when most pregnancy failed—Paige hadn’t been able to do that. From the moment she’d seen the positive pregnancy test, she’d been unable to think of it as a clump of cells or a fetus. It had been a baby and when she miscarried at fifteen weeks it had been a baby with a name that had been lost and the loss had been gut-punchingly real. The absence of that life had been real.
It still was. Now, more than ever.
She finished off her glass of wine, hardly even tasting it and was refilling it when Jules called. Paige thought about letting it go to voicemail, but Jules would just keep calling every ten minutes until Paige answered.
“Is it over?” Jules asked when Paige picked up.
“Yep. I’m officially a divorce statistic.”
“How did it go?”
“It was great. Not nearly as bad as I thought it would be.”
“There you go, deflecting real feelings with humor.”
“As a coping mechanism, it works pretty well,” Paige told her. Then, with one last look at the ultrasound, she put it back in the drawer.
“So what are you doing right now?”
“I just finished walking around my house. I own the whole thing now because David gave it to me.”
“Oh, my God, are you kidding?”
“Nope.”
“That makes it so hard to hate him.”
“Don’t. I mean it.”
Jules sighed. “Sorry. That was shitty.”
“It was. You didn’t see him today.”
Paige heard the telltale beep of another incoming call and looked at her phone screen. “Damn it. My mom’s calling me.”
“Don’t answer it.”
“I’m not. But I’m going to have to talk to her at some point. God knows I don’t want her coming to the house, instead. That would literally be the low point of the day. She never did like David, so I know instead of offering a shoulder to cry on, she’d be telling me how much better off I am without him. And that she was right when she said it wouldn’t last.”
“You don’t need her shoulder. You have mine and mine is better. Speaking of which, I’m going to grab dinner and have my shoulder at your place in two hours—”
“Thanks, but I plan on finishing a bottle of wine by myself for dinner and being passed out in two hours, so let’s make it another night.”
“Paige.”
“Jules.”
Jules sighed again, this time for what seemed like thirty seconds. “I don’t like it. You shouldn’t be alone.”
“Jules, I’m not fit company right now. I love you, but I don’t want you here. I don’t want anyone here.”
Jules finally relented, but only after Paige promised to get together with her the next night. After saying goodbye, Paige started in on her second glass of wine and as she was killing it in record speed, her mom called again. This time Paige answered, but only to tell Claire they’d have to talk another time, after which Paige immediately hung up, cutting off any reply. Turning her phone to ‘silent mode’, she then set it on the nightstand, face down for good measure.
Even though it was barely 4 p.m., Paige went into the bathroom and started to draw herself a bath, putting practically every bath product she had in it—bubble bath, bath salts, and a bath bomb. While the tub was filling, she removed her skirt and blouse, uncaring that she ripped the blouse when a button gave her trouble. She crammed the two pieces of clothing into the bathroom’s garbage can without a second thought, then took off her bra and panties.
Glass of wine in hand, she stepped into the tub and sank down into the water, almost disappearing in the mountain of suds she’d created. While the hot water slowly warmed her cold body, she looked at her engagement ring and wedding band on her left hand and began to cry in earnest, with big, fat, silent tears running down her face. She cried until her earlier headache grew into what felt like a migraine and her eyes were burning and gritty.
Then, with deliberation, she went to take the rings off, needing the final break.
Probably because the hot water was making her fingers swell a little, she couldn’t get the simple, platinum band over the knuckle. In a sort of frenzy, she kept pulling at it until her finger was even more swollen and hurt like hell. But, rather than stop like a sane person would, she kept at it, using shower gel as lubrication until she finally got it off, setting it on the edge of the tub. After another epic struggle, which left her finger red and throbbing, the beautiful engagement ring finally came off and she set it next to her wedding band.
Completely done with the day, Paige got out of the tub and wrapped herself in her robe, not even bothering to dry off. She decided brushing her teeth wasn’t a priority that night and avoided looking at the double sinks that she and David had been so excited to have after sharing a single one for so long.
Paige crawled into bed on David’s side and wondered if she should start sleeping in the middle now that the divorce was final. Would it make her feel like there wasn’t supposed to be someone in bed with her, like it had been feeling for the past few months? She’d have to try it and find out.
Spook jumped on the bed and curled up with her as she drank glass after glass of wine and watched the daylight fade in the master bedroom as memories washed over her, making it hard to breathe.
She remembered how he used to look at her like she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
She remembered how reverent his touch had been.
She remembered the smell of his skin, the softness of his hair.
She remembered how much he liked morning sex, but had set his desires aside because she didn’t.
She remembered exactly how her cheek had rested against the space between his shoulder and throat.
She remembered how patient he’d been with her, even when there shouldn’t have been any patience left.
She remembered how much they had loved each other, until that hadn’t been enough.
Finally, when the room was dark and the wine was gone, the tears came again and when she was done, she wondered what David was doing at that moment—and if he was thinking about her.
As she started to drift off into a wine-induced sleep, she tried to comfort herself with the thought that this would be the worst day of her life, not knowing she would be wrong.
There would be worse days to come. And they would come, one after another, until she was afraid they wouldn’t end.